Chinese Pastor Who Organized Human Wall Against Church Demolition "Grateful" for Prison Sentence

A Chinese pastor maintains that he is grateful for the opportunity to serve a prison sentence.

Huang Yizi faces up to seven years in prison for criticizing the government's campaign to demolish church buildings, according to the Christian Post.

China Aid reports Pastor Yizi gathered church members and other believers to defend Salvation Church by created a human wall to keep authorities out on July 21. Fourteen people were seriously injured that day.

On Aug. 3, police took forty-year-old Pastor Huang Yizi of a Wenzhou-based church into criminal detention. Aug. 28 he was arrested for “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order.”

"He [Yizi] seems well. He is grateful that God has given him the chance to serve time in the detention centre," Beijing-based rights lawyer Zhang Kai Ahaojie said.

Huang’s arrest notice is translated below:

Upon approval from Pingyang County People’s Procuratorate, this bureau placed Huang Yizi under arrest on August 28, 2014 on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order.” Huang Yizi is currently being detained at Pingyang County Detention Center.